Balance (protein, carbs, vitamins) and variety. To save money (and keep the girlish figure) eat half of large-portioned dinners and have the leftovers for lunch the next day.

Coffee in the morning, sometimes in the afternoon, just to get revved up. A liberal nap-taking policy, because sleep is the best cure for fatigue. Exercise and sunlight, go running/cycling/tree-climbing outdoors for efficiency.

And oatmeal! Plain old oatmeal is cheap, healthy, and filling. Try it with bananas or blueberries.

I'm also a big fan of oatmeal with some fresh fruit or raisins/craisins, some crushed walnuts or almonds (raw, not smoked or roasted, as any kind of cooking breaks down the healthy fats in tree nuts), and a little brown sugar usually makes for a nice solid day of pleasant work.

Ginormous amounts of h2o, and quick access to a bathroom that isn't unpleasant to visit. I dig red meat, but for long sessions, more vegetarian-inspired faire. Progressive trance if I'm insufficiently disciplined to choose the better option: classical music.

Green tea. I get the good stuff from a Chinese grocery store nearby.

Me too. Yamamoto Jasmine Green from the asian grocery on Castro street here in Mountain View. Two or three cups per day (more and I get jittery rather than alert).

Jasmine tea is delicious. You should try brewing it from real jasmine tea pearls (a small ball of green tea with a jasmine flower hand-wrapped around it). Most (all?) of the bagged jasmine tea is basic green tea with jasmine flavoring added.

I've tried all of the gunpowder/pearl teas at the two asian markets on Castro, and have been underwhelmed. The tea tends to be too bitter and the Jasmine overpowering. The price also offends my delicate sensibilities--between 9 and 18 bucks for one tin, which makes twenty to thirty cups of tea. My girlfriend drinks Mighty Leaf Earl Grey, so I can become accustomed to spending crazy prices for tea, but only if I enjoy it more than the cheaper alternative.

My supply of Jasmine pearls came from a trip to Beijing a while ago... the department store had two varieties of Jasmine pearls; I got the better ones. I don't remember exactly how much it was, but it was definitely a lot less than a dollar an ounce.

Especially when cost is a concern, you can reuse the leaves at least two or three times. The only problem is figuring out how to store the wet leaves. I never figured that out, in fact.

Enjoy your tea, the convenience of bags is enough that it's really rare for me to actually make it from leaves.

Coffee in evenly spaced doses is key for me. Too much and I go up a tree. It's about staying at peak alertness. I take naps too. Coding while tired=expensive. When I'm tired, solutions come slower, code-quality drops off and I end up fixing it later.

The good ramen. The imported stuff with big thick noodles, recognizable chunks of dehydrated vegetables and the kind of spice that our pathetic Western palates are unused to.

Caffiene doesn't do it for me anymore, so I've been experimenting with energy drinks. They seem to work better, but generally taste awful (Red Bull is the prime offender).

Maybe it's my old age (32), but large doses of stimulants end up reducing my productivity over the span of a few days. I'm much better off with a trickle of caffeine via green tea, and getting a good nights rest, rather than going on work binges and crashing afterward.

It's not your "old" age. I'm 23 and I absolutely agree. See: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=55250

I never understood why redbull tastes the way it does. It reminds me of bad bubble gum. Other energy drinks seem to have gone in the same direction? Is it required for energy drinks to taste the way they do?

It is probably the taste of Taurine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Taurine).

Taurine was originally extracted from bull's balls and hence when you drink a RedBull, you are giving a bull a ... lets say, doing a bull a favor :-)

(Taurine is not extracted from bull semen nowadays, of course ( probably coz this is not scalable :-p ) and it is claimed that the whole Tauine-Bull thing is a myth... but myths are fun to propagate)

http://www.google.com/search?q=taurine+semen

Hm. Didn't know it struck anyone else the same way. What my father does is fills one of those giant AMPM Big Gulps (or what the fuck ever they're calling them) with a mix of all the different energy drinks they have. Guess what that giant plastic mug always smells like to me? Bad bubble gum.

Try the Rockstar Juiced series. They're 50-70% fruit juice and don't taste like bubble gum. My only concern is that they contain sucralose, a substance I generally avoid.

Almost none of the energy drinks have enough of their extra ingredients to actually do anything... ginseng and taurine can be stimulating, but you need to take a lot more than they put in Red Bull.

If you're willing to branch out into other stimulants, I'd strongly recommend Kratom, feel free to ask if you have any questions.

Most energy drinks contain high doses of B vitamins. B vitamin deficiency causes fatigue, weakness, and depression. I'm not sure if mild B vitamin deficiency is common or if very high doses do the opposite, but I've noticed a bigger mental boost from some energy drinks than from a similar amount of caffeine without the vitamins.

Taurine a stimulant? I thought that's a relaxing aminoacid they put there so you won't get too nervous with all that caffeine.

Sorry, taurine is not actually a stimulant even though it is commonly referred to as such.

http://www.erowid.org/ask/ask.php?ID=3016

A similar post:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40651

[P.S: Not that I condone messing with your brain chemistry. You can see my opinion there.]

I've found there's no net benefit to caffeine. A little bit can make me a bit more alert and optimistic, but then I pay for it with interest on the caffeine hangover / comedown. Besides, more than a little bit of it makes me much too restless and chatty to program anyway.

Junk food is a lose for me too. Anything that causes a blood sugar spike hurts productivity. I like peanut butter on bananas, red leaf lettuce, cheese, ... and of course burritos. Water to drink.

The best fuel for me is having a healthy physical life away from the computer. I've noticed that being in good shape helps a lot when pulling long shifts on the computer.

As far as beverages go, I usually drink more tea than water (mate or cold-brewed ginger and green tea). For a hard boost, espresso is the way to go but it doesn't last long and puts my metabolism into hyperdrive.

DMAE - it's a plant extract they sell at health food stores which is apparently metabolized into stuff that feeds your brain more oxygen. Commonly used with autistics because they often start to talk more fluently when they've been taking the stuff.

Best cure for programmer's burn out ever invented.

Coke Zero, Diet Coke with and without caffeine, milk, oatmeal and cinnamon. If I exercise, I also get cravings for meat, veggies, fruit and pasta, which helps confirm the healthiness of exercise. I wish I could get caffeine free Coke Zero, to reduce my caffeine intake.

Tea. Irish Breakfast when I can find it, Earl Grey when I can't. No milk, no sugar.

Grilled chicken + bacon calzones, loud music, and Propel. Gotta stay hydrated.

Usually loads of water, some pizza, the occasional energy drink, and my Beatles catalog keep me awake.

www.digitalgunfire.com, cheese on toast, and instant coffee. (Every so often I think "real coffee is great! I must drink more of it", but as a result I'm building up a collection of filthy abandoned coffee makers...)

mountain dew (regular or code red). caffeine is like a legal performance enhancing drug for coding. Outside of that I try to keep hydrated by drinking lots of water (and keeping a restroom nearby).

Mountain Dew is probably one of the worst things you can put into your body that comes in a can and can be bought under the age of 18.

As a recovered Mountain Dew head, I agree. The sugar in Mountain Dew is the worst of it. I used to require five or so Mountain Dews every day. When I slowly stopped drinking it (I switched completely to coffee to avoid caffeine withdraw) I stopped getting really hyper then crashing five times a day. My concentration is much better without Mountain Dew. It took me about five weeks to switch (one less can per week).

Not too long afterward I got my caffeine intake down to whatever is in two to four cups (or shots of espresso) of coffee a day, where it's been ever since.

Now, a few years later, I'm in the process of limiting myself to two cups (or shots of espresso) a day. I'm down to three, but it's fairly difficult to go lower -- which sucks.

Don't drink all this shit! Drink water and sleep when you're tired; maybe have a cup of coffee a day. Your concentration will be much better. There's natural variance in energy levels throughout the day. Stimulants just make the highs higher and the low lower -- but they also make the highs shorter and the lows longer. Check up and really pay attention to yourself through the day -- you'll likely want to reclaim your energy back from all these supposed "energy drinks" and other garbage.

The way I learned it is the natural alertness cycle is sinusoidal, and by taking stimulants strategically timed one can square it off. That way one can increase total hours of close to peak alertness, as well as make sleep deeper and heavier.

I generalized my personal experience. It may be different for different people, but I'm tired longer the more I use stimulants. But I've also had one to two cups of coffee in the morning every day for about four years now. If I drink more at other times I generally feel worse for a longer period of time and don't gain much in the way of concentration.

It's not even worse than any other carbonated soda. I would say it is marginally better, because it has fruit juice in it! I'm not joking, look at the label.

Probably true, but it tastes a lot better than redbull.

carbohydrates, a good night's sleep, coffee in the morning, Rockstars in the afternoon (not at night -- makes me sleep poorly, even when I go to bed tired).

Iced tea. (My employer provides it for free...)

Redbull ;)

(I'm drinking it right now) :P

cold arizona green tea :D